Rationalizing thus, she moved away from in front of the Western Union office and started toward the park two blocks away. She felt that it was necessary that she do something about herself and her life and do it immediately. Campbell Kitchen had said that everyone must find salvation within one’s self, that no one in life need be a total misfit, and that there was some niche for every peg, whether that peg be round or square. If this were true then surely she could find hers even at this late date. But then hadn’t she exhausted all possibilities? Hadn’t she explored every province of life and everywhere met the same problem? It was easy for Campbell Kitchen or for Gwendolyn to say what they would do had they been she, for they were looking at her problem in the abstract, while to her it was an empirical reality. What could they know of the adjustment proceedings necessary to make her life more full and more happy? What could they know of her heartaches?
She trudged on, absolutely oblivious to the people she passed or to the noise and bustle of the street. For the first time in her life she felt that she must definitely come to some conclusion about her life and govern herself accordingly. After all she wasn’t the only black girl alive. There were thousands on thousands, who, like her, were plain, untalented, ordinary, and who, unlike herself, seemed to live in some degree of comfort. Was she alone to blame for her unhappiness? Although this had been suggested to her by others, she had been too obtuse to accept it. She had ever been eager to shift the entire blame on others when no doubt she herself was the major criminal.
But having arrived at this—what did it solve or promise for the future? After all it was not the abstractions of her case which at the present moment most needed elucidation. She could strive for a change of mental attitudes later. What she needed to do now was to accept her black skin as being real and unchangeable, to realize that certain things were, had been, and would be, and with this in mind begin life anew, always fighting, not so much for acceptance by other people, but for acceptance of herself by herself. In the future she would be eminently selfish. If people came into her life—well and good. If they didn’t—she would live anyway, seeking to find herself and achieving meanwhile economic and mental independence. Then possibly, as Campbell Kitchen had said, life would open up for her, for it seemed as if its doors yielded more easily to the casual, self-centered individual than to the ranting, praying pilgrim. After all it was the end that mattered, and one only wasted time and strength seeking facile open-sesame means instead of pushing along a more difficult and direct path.
By now Emma Lou had reached St. Nicholas Avenue and was about to cross over into the park when she heard the chimes of a clock and was reminded of the hour. It was growing late—too late for her to wander in the park alone where she knew she would be approached either by some persistent male or an insulting park policeman. Wearily she started towards home, realizing that it was necessary for her to get some rest in order to be able to be in her classroom on the next morning. She mustn’t jeopardize her job, for it was partially through the money she was earning from it that she would be able to find her place in life. She was tired of running up blind alleys all of which seemed to converge and lead her ultimately to the same blank wall. Her motto from now on would be “find—not seek.” All things were at one’s fingertips. Life was most kind to those who were judicious in their selections, and she, weakling that she now realized she was, had not been a connoisseur.
As she drew nearer home she felt certain that should she attempt to spend another night with Alva and his child, she would surely smother to death during the night. And even though she felt this, she also knew within herself that no matter how much at the present moment she pretended to hate Alva that he had only to make the proper advances in order to win her to him again. Yet she also knew that she must leave him if she was to make her self-proposed adjustment—leave him now even if she should be weak enough to return at some not so distant date. She was determined to fight against Alva’s influence over her, fight even though she lost, for she reasoned that even in losing she would win a pyrrhic victory and thus make her life less difficult in the future, for having learned to fight future battles would be easy.
She tried to convince herself that it would not be necessary for her to have any more Jasper Cranes or Alvas in her life. To assure herself of this she intended to look John up on the morrow and if he were willing let him reenter her life. It was clear to her now what a complete fool she had been. It was clear to her at last that she had exercised the same discrimination against her men and the people she wished for friends that they had exercised against her—and with less reason. It served her right that Jasper Crane had fooled her as he did. It served her right that Alva had used her once for the money she could give him and again as a black mammy for his child. That was the price she had had to pay for getting what she thought she wanted. But now
